Accreditation within the National Scheme provides a framework for evaluating whether individuals seeking registration are suitably qualified and competent to practise as a health practitioner in Australia. This framework is a crucial quality-assurance and riskmanagement mechanism for the scheme.
Effective delivery of the accreditation function ensures:
The accreditation functions are performed by accreditation authorities, which may be external accreditation entities or accreditation committees established by the relevant National Board. A list of accreditation authorities can be on our Accreditation Authorities page.
Accreditation authorities develop, review and submit accreditation standards to National Boards for approval, and they assess and accredit programs of study and education providers against the approved accreditation standards. Accreditation authorities are often responsible for assessment of overseas-trained practitioners, and may be responsible for assessing overseas accrediting and assessing authorities.
The National Law provides that each accreditation authority must publish how it exercises the accreditation function. Each accreditation authority publishes information about its functions online.
National Boards publish the accreditation standards they approve on their websites.
Cross-profession work on accreditation issues is undertaken through a collaborative, consensusbuilding approach – reflecting the model of independent decision-making by accreditation authorities agreed before the National Scheme started. The National Boards, the accreditation authorities and AHPRA have established an Accreditation Liaison Group (ALG) to support this approach and to provide advice and guidance on common accreditation issues to facilitate effective delivery of accreditation within the National Scheme. In 2015/16, AHPRA appointed a joint policy and project officer to support collaborative work on priority accreditation issues across the National Scheme.
Over the past six years, collaborative work across National Boards, accreditation authorities and AHPRA, primarily coordinated by the ALG, has progressively built a framework of common policies and guidance about good practice in accreditation. The framework includes reference documents such as Accreditation under the National Law, the Quality Framework for the accreditation function and several other documents that promote shared understanding, consistent approaches and good practice across the National Scheme. These documents are published on our Accreditation publications page. This year, the ALG initiated a collaborative project to seek feedback from accreditation authorities, National Boards and AHPRA about their use of these documents.
In 2015/16, the ALG coordinated work on a range of cross-profession issues including a more comprehensive analysis of accreditation costs and preliminary research on international models of accreditation. This work is intended to assist the further review of accreditation arrangements to be commissioned by Health Ministers.
Accreditation authorities provide six-monthly reports to their relevant National Board on developments relevant to the domains of the Quality Framework. The National Law requires communication between accreditation authorities and their National Boards when certain decisions are made or required.
This year, AHPRA worked with the National Boards to implement an integrated approach to monitoring the six-monthly reports from accreditation authorities. This work aims to better support National Board oversight of the accreditation functions, to better meet the regulatory principles and objectives and guiding principles of the National Law, and to share lessons learnt.
AHPRA procedures for the development of accreditation standards are an important governance mechanism. They inform the National Boards, the accreditation authorities and AHPRA about the matters that:
Joint meetings are held annually between representatives of all National Boards, accreditation authorities and AHPRA. These provide a formal mechanism to discuss common accreditation issues. They facilitate shared understanding of accreditation under the National Law to address the objectives and guiding principles of the National Scheme.
This year, the focus of the joint annual meeting held in December 2015 was to discuss innovation and improvements in accreditation since the National Scheme began in 2010, reflect on the learnings from the independent review of the National Scheme and prepare for the further review of accreditation functions proposed by Health Ministers. A meeting summary is published on our Accreditation publications page.
Three of the National Boards have decided to exercise accreditation functions through a committee established by the Board. The accreditation authorities for these professions are:
AHPRA’s role in supporting the effective delivery of the accreditation authorities’ functions for these three professions provides an opportunity for more consistent approaches across professions and shared lessons.
This year, the accreditation committees continued progressing their assessment and accreditation of programs of study, and monitoring approved programs. In late 2015, the first accredited programs were approved by the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia as leading to qualifications for general registration. In April 2016, AHPRA, in consultation with the chairs of the accreditation committees, developed and delivered a one-day workshop on risk-based monitoring for committee members. This cross-profession collaboration provided an opportunity for the committees to learn from each other, drawing upon a range of experiences and professional backgrounds in the development of a risk-based approach to monitoring.
There is potential for exploring further collaborative work to enhance delivery of the accreditation functions in the National Scheme, such as:
AHPRA will work with the accreditation authorities to further explore some of these opportunities.
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